


Wacky Wednesday

by changeapproved



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Bodyswap, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-14
Updated: 2020-02-14
Packaged: 2021-02-27 20:22:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22701679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/changeapproved/pseuds/changeapproved
Summary: A bizarre telepathic mishap leaves the Doctor and Graham in dire straits. Or at the very least it leads to a really weird day and a couple of revelations that the Doctor would rather have kept to herself.Set after Spyfall but before Fugitive of the Judoon.
Relationships: Thirteenth Doctor & Graham O'Brien
Comments: 33
Kudos: 181





	Wacky Wednesday

Given the melodramatic fashion in which the Doctor had bodily thrown him away from the device, Graham had expected a bigger blast. Not that he was complaining; he didn’t want a repeat of the sonic mine incident. As it was, all he seemed to be suffering was a few twinges in his left shoulder where he’d hit the floor, and already that was fading. Thank goodness for small mercies.

He pushed himself onto his knees and frowned at the complete lack of pain that came with it. Now that was...odd. If that bloody bomb thing had done something to his limbs he was going to be livid.

“You all right over there, Doc?” He cleared his throat then, voice having come out a lot higher than it normally would. 

A deep groan came from somewhere to the right of him and Graham turned his head. Hair tickled the side of his face. Hang on…

“I’m okay,” said a voice, that very much wasn’t the Doctor’s. 

Graham’s heart began to pound in his chest. No. Graham’s _hearts_ began to pound in his chest. He looked down at his hands. His pale, hairless and slender hands protruding from pale grey coat cuffs. _No._ No. NO. _Absolutely not._

“Doc. Doctor!” 

“Hang on a second! Heads a bit wib- _oh._ Have I regenerated? Again! But I only just got this- _oh.”_

The Doctor sat up. Or rather Graham saw himself sit up. A chill ran down his spine. It was like looking in a mirror, except that he’d _never_ seen his own face scrunch up in that confused way before. He dug his fingernails into his palm. Fingernails he _shouldn’t have._

“Doctor,” he said again. 

“Oooh,” said the Doctor. Her (his) eyes widened and she looked down at her (his) body. “That’s a bit spooky. Graham? Is that-”

“ _Doctor_.” 

“All right, all right. Give me a mo.” 

“I will not _‘give you a mo_ ’! You switch us back right now!” 

Graham became suddenly aware of footsteps slapping against the floor. Two sets, he thought. Running towards them. He looked up just in time to see Yaz and Ryan turn the corner. They skidded to a halt just outside the door of the lab.

“Doctor!” said Yaz breathlessly. “Graham. Are you guys all right? The whole ship shook!” 

“So,” said the Doctor. “Funny story, that.” 

* * *

This could not really be happening. It just couldn’t. He’d read his fair share of Vonnegut, but he was no Billy Pilgrim and he was not unstuck in time. He was not unstuck from his body. Consciousnesses didn’t just go swapping vessels with the nearest person. This kind of stuff just didn’t happen to people. At the very least this kind of stuff didn’t happen to Graham. 

Except that _things like this_ just didn’t seem to stop happening lately, did they? 

He stood a few feet away from the TARDIS console and resisted the urge to take those extra steps forward to play with the controls. The desire to fondle bits of the machine was clearly hardwired into the Doctor’s DNA. He tried not to think too much about it. Tried very hard to ignore how in tune he felt to every single power fluctuation a split second before they happened, because believing he was somehow emotionally tethered to a sentient machine was too big to handle right now.

“So,” said Yaz. “All you did was press the off button and then it just...body swapped you?” 

Beside her Ryan was pressing his hand to his mouth in an attempt to conceal his laughter, though it did nothing to cover the mirth that shone in his eyes. Graham scowled. 

“Oi!” said the Doctor. He flinched at the sound of his own voice reprimanding him. “Stop doing that with my face! I don’t like it.” 

“Well maybe you should have thought about that before you started pressing random buttons on a random mystery object!” 

“This is well trippy,” said Ryan. “Do you know how to swap back yet?” 

“Uh…” The Doctor glanced at the screen she’d been squinting at for the last ten minutes and then shook her head. “Not as such. I’m having a bit of trouble...performing to my usual standards.” 

“Oh my God,” said Graham, as Ryan was finally unable to hold back his laughter. “Doc, if you don’t stop saying stuff like that in my body I swear I’m going to-” 

“You’ll what, Graham,” said the Doctor, with a roll of her (his) eyes. 

“I will…” Graham knew he was grasping at straws. “I’ll…” 

The Doctor raised a single eyebrow.

“I will eat a pear!”

She gasped, and he tried not to recoil at the sight of his own face in such distress.

“It’s not my fault your brain is so slow!” 

“Wow. That’s really...yeah. Thanks for that, Doc.” 

“Don’t be so offended. I don’t just mean you, Graham. I mean _all humans._ ” 

“Is that right?” said Yaz, folding her arms across her chest. 

The Doctor looked between the three of them. “Oh come on. You know I didn’t mean it like _that._ How am I supposed to do anything in here? One heart! No respiratory bypass system. How do you people cope? Regenerating into a new body is one thing...but _this..._ My bones keep clicking when I move! Bones aren’t meant to click!” 

“This ain’t exactly a picnic for me either you know,” said Graham, stepping forward. “Your arms are too short and…” He trailed off. “Well that’s about it really. That don’t mean I don’t want my own body back though!” 

The Doctor huffed out a mirthless laugh that sounded entirely alien coming from Graham’s mouth. “Wait until you need to go to the bathroom and realise you can’t pee standing up anymore. We’ll see if you’re still whistling the same tune then.” 

Graham felt his face flush and given how pale the Doctor was, he was sure they could all see it. Ryan laughed again. “You think switching us back is going to take that long?” 

“No. Maybe. Probably.” 

“All right,” said Yaz loudly. “Maybe it’s time we all took a breath. It’s been a long day and we’re all tired.” 

“I’m not tired,” said Graham, surprised to find it was actually true. For once. There were some perks, he supposed, to being put in a body younger than his own. Honestly, he’d forgotten how it felt to stand up without an involuntary groan. He was willing to bet he’d do a lot better with the whole running thing come their next adventure too, assuming they weren’t already back in their own bodies. 

“I wouldn’t mind stopping for something to eat,” said Ryan, with a shrug of his shoulders. 

“You three go ahead,” said the Doctor, wrinkling her nose at something on the screens in front of her. Graham was sure his face had never been so expressive before.

“Can I just say that hearing Graham say he doesn’t want to stop for dinner is one of the weirdest things I’ve ever seen,” said Yaz. “It’s like...unsettling.” 

“I best not have wasted away by the time I get that body back, Doc,” said Graham, only half joking. The Doctor was already too engrossed in whatever she was reading to answer. If it got them out of this mess faster he wasn’t complaining. 

“Come on then, granddad.” 

Ryan clapped him on a bony shoulder and he instinctively flinched away. A prickle of...something...flared in his gut and he blinked. Discomfort? Anxiety? It was gone before he could really register what he’d felt. Or, he slowly realised, what his body had felt. 

“Sorry,” said Ryan, taking a step back. “I didn’t realise you were hurt. You should have said. We can-” 

“I’m all right, son,” said Graham, cutting him off before he got carried away. “You just surprised me is all. I must have hit my shoulder harder than I thought.” 

_You’re a bad liar, Graham O’Brien._ Grace had told him that the day they met, on one long day after a particularly strenuous round of chemo. _I’m fine,_ he’d told the beautiful nurse who sat by his side. _Rubbish,_ she’d laughed. He’d been too drained, both emotionally and physically, to feel embarrassed about it, and thankfully Grace had been charmed by his complete lack of guile. 

Lies rolled off the Doctor’s tongue as easily as breathing. 

He looked over and found the Doctor watching him solemnly. If she couldn’t get them back to normal in the very near future, they needed to have a serious conversation about what this body swap really meant for them. 

“I think I saw some pasta in one of the cupboards this morning,” said Yaz.

_Not now though_ , he thought. Not while they had an audience. While Ryan’s constant sniggering was mostly directed at him, he could tell it was rubbing the Doctor the wrong way too. No matter how blase she was acting about the whole thing, he knew what stress looked like in his own body, and the awkward way she held her shoulders was it. 

“Check the inside left pocket of my jacket,” he said instead. 

The Doctor paused, and then did as she was told. She withdrew his pair of reading glasses. 

“Oh!” She put them on her face (almost poking her eye out on the first attempt) and looked back at the TARDIS screens. She smiled, and on Graham’s face it looked only vaguely less manic than it usually did on her own. “Oh that’s loads better.” 

“Yeah I thought it might be,” said Graham, amused. She’d better not have given him a headache with all the squinting. 

“I’m not used to specs that actually make things clearer,” she said.

“You wear fake glasses?” asked Ryan, pulling a face. “That’s a bit lame, mate.” 

“Not in this body.” 

“Graham’s body?” 

“No, I mean not in that body.” She gestured towards Graham. 

“In other bodies then?” asked Yaz. 

The Doctor pinched the bridge of her nose. Yep. She had indeed given Graham’s body a headache. Of all the nerve. 

“Come on, kids,” said Graham. “The Doc’s not as young as she used to be. She looks like she could do with a bit of peace and quiet while she sorts this thing out.” 

Yaz opened her mouth like she was about to protest, but at a look from Graham she seemed to change her mind and followed both he and Ryan out of the room. 

* * *

Cooking had never been Graham’s strong suit. He was more of a ‘frozen food banged in the oven that he inevitably forgot about and let burn' sort of guy. Although under duress from Ryan he’d conceded to getting himself one of them Alexas for the kitchen that he could set himself a timer on, which admittedly had resulted in less time spent picking black bits off his battered haddock. The only thing he could cook was pasta. Pasta in arrabiata sauce, to be specific, was Grace’s favourite meal. Within a few months of their relationship she’d insisted he learned it, and he'd always be grateful for that.

Nowadays he cooked it to feel closer to her. It was something he and Ryan could share. 

After a few false starts (Graham still wasn’t used to how much smaller the Doctor’s hands were than his own and kept misjudging the distance of things) the three of them had put together a meal as best they could and sat around the small kitchen table. Ryan still kept glancing over at him and smirking, but his expression had now taken on a level of curiosity. 

Then Graham took his first bite of the meal and immediately spat it back out. A bitter sting remained on his tongue. So much for that then.

Ryan grinned. “Ah, mate. The Doctor not a fan then?” 

“I guess not,” Graham wheezed. He reached for the glass of water in front of him to wash away the flavour. Even that had a strange taste to it. And since when had pasta had such a...rubbery texture?

“I’ve never seen the Doctor eat anything like this before,” said Yaz. 

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen her eat anything other than those bloody Custard Creams,” Graham replied. “I can’t live on Custard Creams until she gets us back to normal!” 

He saw Yaz smother a smile and he rolled his eyes. He didn’t blame them really, but it wasn’t half annoying. 

“I’m sure we can find something she likes,” said Yaz, ever practical. “It would probably do her body some good to have a decent meal in it anyway.” Her brow furrowed. “Assuming her species are supposed to eat decent meals?” 

“What...you think she gets all her energy from the Time Vortex or something?” said Ryan. 

They both looked at him expectantly, as though he’d somehow have the answer. 

“I don’t bloody know, do I!” he said. “I’ve only been her for about five minutes!” And so far he’d been doing his level best not to learn anything about the Doctor’s biology at all. There were certain things nobody needed to know about their friends, and the detailed workings of their digestive system was one of them. He felt his shoulders sag. Maybe he should just retrieve her ‘secret’ stash of Custard Creams from the vegetable drawer in the fridge and have done with it. 

“Well we’ll find out then,” said Yaz, with a determined glint in her eyes that was equal parts inspiring and alarming. 

And that was how, about ninety minutes later, the TARDIS kitchen ended up in an absolute state from attempts at simultaneously cooking eight and a half meals. Graham wasn’t even sure where most of the ingredients had come from, because he hadn’t seen them earlier. 

It had been decided early on that with Graham’s complete lack of current equilibrium he’d have to sit out the parts of cooking that involved knives and things too hot to touch, so Yaz stood in front of the stove (which was more of a glowing slab of pale blue rock that seemed to adjust itself to the required temperature of its own volition) mixing together what was supposed to be vegetable fried rice. If there were bits of mashed potato stuck into the ends of her hair, Graham decided not to mention it. 

Scattered around the table was every single plate they’d been able to find, all covered in partially eaten foodstuffs. He wasn’t looking forward to washing the dishes later.

“I can’t believe she doesn’t like these,” said Ryan, around a mouthful of spring roll they’d just taken out of the oven. Bits of food fell out of his mouth. “Oops.” 

He languished against the counter next to Yaz - probably waiting for Graham to inevitably turn his nose up at the latest meal so he could scarf it down himself. 

“Neither can I,” said Graham, defeated. He realised he was tapping his foot rapidly against the floor and forced himself to stop. “Might be time to give up.” 

“Just one more!” said Yaz. Graham didn’t have the heart to tell her no, even though he’d long since lost interest in this entire exercise. He wasn’t even hungry, which was something he’d noticed far too late. “I’m almost done.” 

Briefly, he wondered if Yaz’s interest in success was stemming from a desire to help Graham or from a desire to learn more of the Doctor’s secrets. He dismissed the thought though, because where was the harm in trying to figure out what their friend liked to eat? 

Graham heard the approaching footsteps before his young friends did. He wondered if this Time Lord body came with advanced hearing or if Yaz and Ryan were both too distracted by what they were doing to notice. 

Even though he knew it was coming, he still startled when he saw his own face appear at the door. Grey hairs stood out prominently on his temples and his checked shirt hung awkwardly around him, wrinkled and unkempt. He wondered if he always looked that tired or if the Doctor was just working his body to distraction. The latter, he hoped, because he didn’t remember the lines around his eyes and mouth being so deep the last time he looked in a mirror. 

The Doctor froze, eyes roaming over the absolute disaster area that had become the kitchen.

“Having trouble with something?” she asked. Yaz jumped and spun around, guilty expression on her face like she’d been caught doing something she shouldn’t have been.

“You all right, Grah-” Ryan stopped. “Doctor, I mean. That’s still really weird.” 

“Doc,” said Graham. “Why is broccoli your favourite food? Wait no, better question. Why is broccoli the only savoury food you like at all?” 

“Broccoli?” asked the Doctor, sending Graham’s voice high with offense. “I don’t like broccoli!” 

“Yeah,” said Graham. He gestured to the array of dishes piled up on the solid silver table. “All this lot and the only thing I’ve been able to force myself to chew for more than a second is _broccoli_.” 

The Doctor pulled a face. “That doesn’t sound right.”

“You’ve got one hell of a sweet tooth though, I’ll give you that,” said Graham. He pointed to an overly sweetened cup of tea. “Couldn’t even drink it until it had about nine teaspoons of sugar in it.” 

“Well maybe you should think about that next time I ask you for six sugars and you refuse.” 

That was...fair, he thought. He’d been trying to save them all from the whirling dervish he imagined the Doctor to be on a sugar high; he hadn’t really considered that it might be the only way she could drink it. Beyond the occasional pout she never really complained about it either. 

“Done!” said Yaz. She lifted the frying pan away from the heat and then used the nearest fork to push the contents of it into an orange bowl. 

“So this is what you’ve been doing then?” asked the Doctor, watching Yaz move around the compact kitchen. “Trying to find food that Graham can eat?” 

“Trying and failing so far,” said Yaz, disappointed. “I think this one might be the winner though.” 

Given the way Graham could see the Doctor eyeing the bowl, he had a feeling it wouldn’t be. After Yaz had put so much effort into it though he was willing to give it a go. She put the bowl in front of him and handed him the fork. 

“You come to check up on us, Doc?” asked Graham. 

The Doctor shifted awkwardly and shoved her hands into the pockets of the brown pleather jacket that Graham had put on this morning. “Not exactly.” Was that embarrassment Graham could detect? 

“You’re hungry,” he suddenly realised. The Doctor huffed and Ryan laughed.

“Mate, you looked so much like Graham then.” 

“Given that I’m walking around with his face, yeah, I’d say so,” said the Doctor. 

“Nah. You still look like the Doctor but in Graham’s body. _Then_ you looked like Graham. Grumpy because you haven’t eaten yet.” 

“Thanks for that,” said Graham, but without any real heat to it. He knew it was true. “Come sit down, Doc. You can have this.” He pushed the bowl of food across the table. 

The Doctor hesitated but did as she was told and sat down next to Graham. “I don’t like rice,” she said, with a guilty glance at Yaz. The poor kid tried not to look crestfallen. 

“Didn’t think you would,” said Graham. “I do though.” 

Dubiously, the Doctor nodded her head and picked up the fork. Every movement was slow and deliberate, and Graham couldn’t tell whether it was because she was still getting used to his limbs or if she was trying to delay the inevitable. Maybe it was just human food she didn’t like? He made a mental note to ask her what kind of things they ate on Gallifrey later, though he didn’t expect an answer. At the thought his stomach gave a sickly lurch. Very strange. In his life he’d never known anybody as guarded about their personal history as the Doctor was. It was jarring, given her usual inability to stop talking. 

The Doctor shoved a forkful of rice into her mouth and her face lit up. “Oh! That’s amazing.” 

“What can I say,” said Graham with a shrug. “I like my food.” 

“No,” said Ryan sarcastically. “Really?” 

“Graham’s right. Eating is amazing,” said the Doctor, in between furiously chewed mouthfuls of fried rice. “How did I not realise before now?” 

It was a bit tragic really that this was the happiest Graham could remember seeing her since the whole situation with O, or the Master...whatever he was calling himself. Either way as far as names went it was a bit on the nose. Her joy didn’t last very long. 

Yaz and Ryan sat down around the table.

“So you figured this thing out yet?” asked Yaz.

“What thing?” said the Doctor. Her eyes were glued to the bowl she was eating from. Graham had to resist the urge to tell her to calm down a bit, because she was making him look seriously off his rocker. “Oh right. The body thing. Not yet.” 

“Any ideas?” asked Ryan. “‘Cause I was thinking, right, a few years ago I saw this movie called Freaky Friday-” 

“Really, Ryan?” said Yaz, exasperated. “Freaky Friday? That’s what you’re going with?” 

Ryan ignored her. “And in it Lindsay Lohan and Jamie Lee Curtis swapped bodies just like you and Graham. Well...not just like you two, but anyway…” He trailed off for a moment like he’d forgotten what his point was. “All they had to do was learn what it was like to walk in each others shoes a bit, you know?” 

“We’re already wearing each others’ shoes,” said the Doctor. 

“I mean like...metaphorically,” said Ryan. Yaz shook her head, eyes practically rolled all the way into the back of her head. “Maybe if you and Graham learn to appreciate each other more then you’ll switch back.” 

“This is real life, son,” said Graham. “Not a great movie.” 

“It might work,” Ryan insisted. “You don’t know.” 

The Doctor put down her fork thoughtfully. “Do you feel under-appreciated by me, Graham?” she asked. 

“No!” 

Well, there were a few times that he felt like maybe they could have slowed themselves down a bit so he could keep up, but at the same time he understood that a lot of what they did with the Doc was time sensitive. He would never hold that against them.

“Do you feel under-appreciated by me?” he then asked. 

“Nah,” said the Doctor. “I mean you could stand to hang on my every word a bit more, but no.” 

“Probably not that then,” said Graham. 

“Nice try though,” said the Doctor, with about half of her usual enthusiasm. “I’m working on a few theories though. Got some stuff mulling up here.” She tapped her temple with an index finger. “We’ll have this all sorted out in a jiff.” 

* * *

Yaz and Ryan had long since retired for the night.

Her whole body felt sluggish and slow, and around the confused hum of the TARDIS trying to figure out this new brain she was living in, she could feel her mind starting to lose its tether to the waking world. She fought it as best she could, tried to focus on the problem at hand, but the Doctor knew she was losing the fight. She might not like it, but Graham’s body needed sleep, and given that she was just a passenger here she wasn’t willing to push it past its limits and risk doing actual damage to her friend. 

She cast one last glance at the screens in front of her. She’d spent the better part of the last two hours searching for similar wave patterns that had led them to the machine that had done this to no avail, while the machine itself was lying on the floor by her feet, charred and lifeless. She’d really been hoping to make the jump back to her own body before human frailty pulled her under, but it seemed it wasn’t to be. Very annoying. 

“Going to bed, Doc?” asked Graham. 

He was sat on the floor, something the Doctor had never seen him do in his own body (and now that she could feel the constant dull ache in his knees she understood why), playing with a Rubik’s cube he’d found in one of her pockets. She didn’t remember putting it there, but honestly she didn’t remember putting anything beyond her sonic in them and somehow they always ended up brimming with odds and ends. 

“Yeah,” she said, and tried not to sound too resentful about it. Based on the way he looked at her she guessed she hadn’t been very successful. It was bizarre being called out by someone who looked like you. 

“Sorry about that,” said Graham. He shrugged. “I’m only human.” Then he grinned. It seemed he was finally starting to get used to his new casing. Maybe even enjoying it. She didn’t blame him; she’d enjoyed the upgrade after Eyebrows too. When she remembered it had happened anyway. “Or _you’re_ only human.” 

The Doctor stood up a little straighter, back cracking as she did so. Her head felt heavy and...slow. “I’ve been hanging around humans for thousands of years,” she said. “Didn’t think I’d ever be this close to one though.” 

“It’s been an experience for me too, you know. A year ago I didn’t even know aliens existed. Now I _am_ one,” said Graham. “These two hearts...can you always hear them or is it just ‘cause I’m not used to them?” 

He looked up at her, eyes alight with innocence and curiosity. She wondered if that was how she looked to other people. 

“I can always feel them,” she said. “I can’t always hear them though. It’s like breathing...you don’t really know you’re doing it unless you’re thinking about it.” 

He nodded, hands still fiddling relentlessly around the Rubik’s cube in a way Graham’s never normally would. She wondered if he’d noticed. 

“Where are you going to sleep?” he asked. 

She paused, and somewhere in the back of her mind she felt a surge of irritation over yet another obstacle to getting some rest that she was sure wasn’t coming from her. 

“Not sure,” she said, wrinkling her nose. 

“You do have a bedroom, right?” asked Graham. 

“Of course I have a bedroom! A bedroom in the TARDIS. Somewhere.” The TARDIS trilled around her and she felt the faint stirrings of disapproval from the machine. “I use it all the time.” 

“Nice try, Doc,” said Graham, with a lazy grin. “Am I gonna sleep at all tonight?” 

“Unlikely,” the Doctor admitted. “You can try though if you want.” Maybe he’d be able to relax enough to get some rest at least. She wasn’t sure how many of her body’s quirks had stayed with Graham and how many of them had followed her to her new host. He, at least, shouldn’t be plagued by the same nightmares she was.

“You should probably sleep in my room then,” he said. “That’s where my meds are anyway and I don’t want you skipping the amlodipine. My blood pressure is high enough from running around with you lot as it is.” 

Right. Medication. That was a thing humans took sometimes, wasn’t it? She could do that.

Maybe he saw the confusion on her face, because Graham jumped to his feet. “I’ll tell you what, Doc, I’ve not moved this fast in years. Starting to see the appeal of all that running you like to do now. Youth was wasted on me when I was young.” 

She smiled at that one. “You know I’m thousands of years older than you?” 

“I know,” said Graham, waving a hand dismissively. “So you claim anyway. This ain’t the body of someone older than Christianity though, is it?” 

“Nah. Only had it...a year or so? Maybe two? Already starting to lose track to be honest.” 

Graham made a low humming sound. The kind he made when he wasn’t quite sure whether to believe something she’d told him. At least she thought that was what it was; it was harder to tell coming out of her own mouth.

“Anyway, I’ll show you where my bedroom is, yeah?” 

It felt wrong to allow someone to show her around her own TARDIS, even when that someone was wearing her face, but she let Graham lead her from the console room without fuss. She felt too weary to do anything else, and despite the shorter legs he was walking at a pace that she was finding a bit hard to keep up with. If this _was_ a Freaky Friday thing like Ryan had suggested she’d definitely have made a note to consider Graham’s limitations more in the future, because dragging herself along the TARDIS corridors right now was bordering on painful. 

“What do you think the chances are of us waking up tomorrow back in our own bodies?” asked Graham, distracting her from her increasingly dark musings about the way her left knee was beginning to stiffen. 

“Slim,” she said, “but possible.” 

He stopped, coat swishing around his legs. She took a moment to admire it; it really was a cool coat. She’d definitely made the right choice with that one. 

“Really? That could happen?” 

“I have no idea, Graham,” she said. Well, she had a bit of an idea. He probably wouldn’t like the real answer though so…

“I can’t lie, Doc.” 

“What?” 

They started walking again. 

“I can’t lie,” said Graham again. “So neither can you.” 

“What do you- oh. Right.” 

“Yep. I just don’t have the face for it, I think,” said Graham. Thankfully, he didn’t seem mad. “So we’re not swapping back then?” 

She sighed heavily. “Not without another burst of the energy that swapped us in the first place. I’ve torn that machine to pieces. Still haven’t quite figured out what it’s original purpose was, but the telepathic circuits in it were completely fried. We need to replace them. I’ve got a couple of leads on where we can get one, but…” 

“But you’re too tired to go now,” said Graham. 

“Sorry.” 

He shrugged. “No need to be sorry. I get it. It’s my body that’s slowing you down, ain’t it?” 

“Of course not!” She paused. “Well, a bit. A lot, to be honest.” 

Graham smiled, and maybe she was wrong but there was something a little sad about it. “Here we are then,” he said. 

They slowed to a stop in front of a remarkably unremarkable door. A dark sort of wood that the Doctor instinctively knew must be a replica of the door to his bedroom back home. The TARDIS psychic matrix was good like that (for the most part) - arranging her friends’ bedrooms to their own personal preferences. As far as she could tell it made them feel more comfortable out here in the endless voice of space. She didn’t understand it herself, but to each their own. 

The room smelled like sandalwood and tea, which was...comforting in a way. It was a very Graham-y smell. A neatly made double bed sat in the middle of the floor, and beside it a small table containing a lamp, a bottle of water, a couple of books and another pair of glasses. She lingered in the doorway, feeling like she was intruding, but Graham brushed past her and headed straight to the bedside table. He opened the drawer underneath and pulled out a line of pearlescent plastic boxes. 

“Here we go,” he said. She stepped further into the room and held out her hand. He popped open one of the compartments and tipped out two white tablets and a little blue one. Then he passed her the bottle of water. “Swallow them quickly or one of the white ones will get stuck in your throat.” 

She did as she was told and then grimaced. Not fast enough. If she’d been in her own body she’d probably have been able to taste exactly what it was that was mixed in with the pills. As it was all she knew was that she didn’t like it. She took another drink from the bottle of water.

“All right then,” said Graham awkwardly. He rolled backwards and forwards on the balls of his feet. Was that something he normally did or was that something she normally did? “I guess I’ll leave you to get some sleep.” 

Her hearts (no, _heart_ ) skipped a beat at the prospect. Some sleep. Right. She could do that. Nothing to worry about. Graham slept all the time so obviously she’d be able to as well. Maybe Graham didn’t dream? 

She looked over at the bed. There was a pair of plaid pyjamas folded up on the pillow that she hadn’t noticed earlier. 

“Good night, then,” she said, dread coiling in her stomach. 

“Night, Doc.” 

* * *

For two hours Graham wandered alone through the TARDIS hallways, mentally trying to map the location of every room. Assuming they didn’t all move around tomorrow (like those staircases in Harry Potter) he’d be golden. The Doctor’s coat flowed behind him and her worn leather boots pattered gently against the metal floors. It was strange, he thought, that even different sounds followed him around now. In the back of his head he could even hear a very distant hum, which he had a feeling was coming from the TARDIS itself. _Herself_ , he corrected himself, when the humming became louder as if in protest. 

He looked down at his watch - which wasn’t there - and sighed. Right. _‘I'm a_ _Time Lord! I don’t need a watch!’_ The Doctor said that so often, and yet Graham didn’t think he’d ever seen her arrive anywhere on time. Some kind of irony, was what that was. 

He continued his trek through the TARDIS, fingers beginning to drum against his thighs. What to do next, he thought. 

How long before the kids got up again? Soon, he hoped. Soonish. Probably not for another few hours (he wasn’t sure how he knew that, but somehow he did). 

Graham sighed again, eyes falling on the next door along the corridor. He reached out and brushed his fingers along the cold, glowing blue walls. Hexagonal shaped bumps that he couldn’t quite make out were dotted about seemingly at random. Did that mean something? Or did the Doctor just like hexagons? 

He stopped in front of the new room and opened the door. 

_Oh. Wow._

Inside was a huge library. Bookcases both lined the walls and stood casually around the middle of the room. A dull yellow light lit the area and a comforting smell of paper and candle wax wrapped itself around him. He took a moment to note that he himself had never found those smells comforting, before walking further into the room and closing the door behind him. The lights dimmed and Graham found himself drawn to a plush, purple couch not four metres away from the door.

  
Was this where the Doctor slept? 

He tapped his foot rapidly against the floor and considered his options. Maybe he could stop here for a bit and have a read? Or he could keep haunting the TARDIS corridors like a lonely ghost. He paused and frowned at himself. Lonely? That wasn’t what he’d meant. 

Maybe he could try and have a kip instead. That couch did look really comfortable, and though it felt like an electrical current of energy was buzzing just below the surface of his skin, he could also feel a deep weariness in his old bones. _The Doc’s old bones,_ he mentally corrected himself. 

For a moment he felt like he was being pulled in every direction, then he shook his head and everything quietened down. _A read_ , he thought. _I’ll have a read and see if I fall asleep_. It had always worked for him in the past so why not now? 

Content that he’d made the right decision, Graham made his way over to one of the bookcases. If he was lucky the TARDIS might have some Asimov. 

* * *

The Doctor didn’t so much wake up as gradually come back to her senses with the sudden and inescapable knowledge that she needed to use the bathroom. _Again._

“Really, Graham?” she muttered into the empty room. 

Her entire body felt weighted down and the base of her spine ached, but she forced herself up into a sitting position and pulled on the bathrobe she’d found on her first late night trip to the toilet. Time to concede defeat, she thought. Even in the body of another she was destined to live a restless existence. 

* * *

_He turns his back on the broken remains of the golden city and runs._

_It’s too late. Too late. Too late._

_Terror and confusion overwhelms his entire body. The air smells of sulphur and dust clogs in his throat._

_Still, he runs._

_A silver forest gleams orange in the dying light of too hot twin suns._

_It’s too late. No point._

_The barn is already on fire._

_His feet sink into scarlet grass._

_A girl dressed in pale blue stumbles out of the burning shack. Hair singed. Tears clear streaks of dirt from her filthy face._

_It’s too late. No hope. No survivors._

_Still, he falls to his knees in front of her._

_“It’ll be all right," he lies._

_Glass and fire rain down from a rust coloured sky._

_The girl screams._

* * *

Graham jerked awake, hearts thumping wildly in his chest, and nausea curled in his gut, rising to his throat. He tried to swallow it down between sucking in deep, gasping breaths. Fingers flexed impotently around some kind of coarse fabric. 

He rolled over - 

And fell straight onto the floor. 

Pain jolted up from his knees and the palms of his hands and he yelped. _Too late no hope_. Tears leaked from the corners of his eyes and rolled down his nose. Blonde hair curtained the sides of his face, and if he’d had the presence of mind it would have reminded him that he wasn’t in his own body. 

Lights around him flared. Brighter than they were before. 

He was in the library, he dimly realised. The knowledge did nothing to calm his wildly erratic thoughts. _They were all dead._ He didn’t know who _they_ were, but he knew with certainty that it was true. The sheer grief was...inescapable. 

His arms buckled underneath him and he dropped. His cheek pressed against the cool floor and he wheezed, each breath raking over his throat like it was filled with glass. 

“Graham?” 

He barely heard it. Blood rushed in his ears, the barriers between the sleeping and the waking world still thin. Where was he again?

Then someone gripped his shoulders. His body tensed, but there was nothing he could do stop the intruder from rolling him over and propping him up against the sofa. _The sofa, because he was in the library. In the TARDIS._

“Breathe with me, Graham.” 

He forced himself to look up and was startled to see his own face looking back at him. 

Then he remembered. 

“You’re all right,” said the Doctor. “Just breathe.” 

She made a show of sucking in air, and he saw his own chest rise and fall. He did his best to copy with only moderate success. 

_In. Hold for three seconds. Out. In. Hold. Out._

The images were starting to fade. He could actually see the library now. Not a few inches from his hand sat the copy of ‘I, Robot’ he’d picked up earlier to read. 

“You’re safe here, Graham,” said the Doctor. It was less soothing than it might have been if she hadn’t looked like him when she said it. 

He let out one final, heaving breath. 

“I’m all right,” he said. 

She offered him a weak smile and he reached up to rub his eyes. His cheeks were soft and wet beneath his trembling hands. He missed the comforting familiarity of unshaven facial hair there. 

“Let’s get you up off the floor, eh?” said the Doctor kindly.

“I’m all right for another minute,” he said. 

“No, I mean we should get your body off the floor.” She gestured to herself. “Trust me, you’re not going to thank me for this when we swap back.” 

For the first time, he looked at her properly. She’d donned his heavy grey dressing gown and slippers and beneath slightly glazed eyes were dark lines. He supposed he wasn’t the only one struggling to sleep then; hopefully not for the same reason. 

He nodded, not quite trusting his voice to speak, and between them they managed to scrape themselves off the floor and fall backwards onto the soft couch. Graham took a moment to catch his breath while the hearts that he still wasn’t used to continued to beat loudly and seemingly without pattern. His whole body shivered violently. 

It had been a long time since he’d felt so physically weak. It reminded him of a time he’d much rather forget.

He settled backwards into the chair, the cushioned pillows melding around his body like a giant, purple hug. The silence lasted all of about fifty seconds before the Doctor interrupted it. He was almost grateful for the distraction because he could already feel that build up of charged energy running through his veins. 

“So do you want to tell me what that was about?” 

Her voice shook, and he was struck by a sudden, horrible feeling that she already knew. His stomach churned with a cold, creeping dread. 

“How about you tell me why you’re up and about first?” he said instead. He was still trying to piece together everything that he’d seen, even if it was already washing away. _Like footprints on the beach and the tide’s coming in,_ said a voice in his head that he didn’t recognise. 

“Because, Graham,” she said, rolling her eyes, “you need to pee every five minutes and I gave up trying to sleep!”

And wasn’t that enough to jolt him out of his malaise. He flushed, thoroughly mortified. “Oh God. Uh… sorry about that.” 

Next to him, he felt the Doctor shrug. “No need to be embarrassed. You haven’t got anything I haven’t seen before.” 

“That doesn’t really make me feel better, Doc.” 

“I mean I was a man for thousands of years before you met me.” 

“All right.” 

“An older man than you.” 

“ _I get it_.”

“All I’m saying is that the body is just wrapping. It’s what’s up here-” She tapped a finger to her temple. “-that matters. No need to get snippy.” 

She bumped her shoulder into his and he sighed. He still felt so tightly wound that he might snap at any moment, but breathing was starting to feel less like an effort. As guilty as he felt that the Doctor had been dragged out of bed by the unfortunate side-effects of his blood pressure medication, at least he wasn’t alone. 

“It was a bad dream.” 

The Doctor stiffened and he glanced at her. Her fingers toyed with the end of the tie holding the dressing gown closed. 

“Oh?” she said, so casually that it sounded anything but casual. 

He hesitated, wondering if it was worth taking the conversation any further. She already knew about the dream; that much he could work out. Maybe not the specifics, but… He remembered the sickly feeling when he’d woken up. The sheer terror. The _grief_. And the Doctor had been acting awfully strangely these last few weeks. 

_Time to bite the bullet_ , he thought. They’d all been debating the merit of confronting her about whatever was going through her mind for a while, and now he was in a position to actually do something about it. It was his duty, right? As a friend. 

Graham took in a deep breath. 

“I was on a planet,” he said. “And it was on fire.” 

“Earth?” she asked, and he tried not to be offended by how hopeful she sounded. 

“Not unless Earth ends up with two suns and city inside what looks like a broken snow globe,” said Graham. 

“Ah,” she said, and then made no move to elaborate. 

“The grass was red,” he said. 

“Hmm.” 

A beat. 

“Don’t suppose you know where that was?” 

The light around them dulled to a more comforting yellow glow, and though Graham was still finding it intensely uncomfortable to look at the Doctor while she was wandering around in his body, he turned his head so they were face to face. She was sat, back ramrod straight, with her hands clutched around her knees so tightly that her knuckles were white. Graham had never seen himself look so old and so tired before. 

Against his better judgement, he reached over and pried the hand closest to him off her knee and linked their fingers together. For just a moment he acknowledged how strange it felt to have such small digits. Then he brushed past it, because the Doctor was right. This was all just casing. All that mattered was the mind, and right now the Doctor looked completely out of hers. 

“Doc?” he prompted. 

She looked at him, eyes glossy and mouth twisted with conflict. He wondered if she’d have done a better job of keeping her face neutral if she’d been herself. Graham had always worn his heart on his sleeve. He used to think the same of her. 

“You can tell me,” he said. 

Maybe she wanted to. Maybe she didn’t. While she decided, Graham was willing to wait. He’d always been a patient man. Willing to settle in for the long haul. It turned out he didn’t have to wait too long. 

“It’s Gallifrey.” 

The words came out like a whisper, and it took Graham a moment to pinpoint the name. When it clicked, his heart sank.

“Your home planet,” he said. 

She nodded, and utter misery rolled off her in waves. 

“Is that...did that really happen or was it just a dream?” he asked, not knowing if he wanted an answer. 

“It happened,” said the Doctor. He felt tears spring to his eyes. “I wasn’t there for it. Not this time anyway.” 

_Not this time_ felt like a conversation for another day so he filed it away for later. He wanted to hug her, though he knew she wouldn’t thank him for it. 

“How long ago?” he said instead. 

“Not sure,” she said. “It was the Master. Or so he claimed. Can never believe a word that comes out of their mouth. This one feels true though.” 

The Master. The guy she’d been looking for ever since he’d been condemned to living in that alternate reality or whatever it was. The one she’d claimed had been her oldest friend. _Some friend_ , he thought.

“I went home,” she said. Her voice broke and his heart broke along with it for her. “I went home after I dropped Ada and Noor off back in their own timelines and...everything was destroyed. Not one life sign on the entire planet. And I don’t know how to…” She trailed off and shook her head. “I don’t know what to do, Graham.” 

He had no answers for her.

“That’s why you’ve been so-” 

“Mardy,” the Doctor finished for him, and he flinched remembering when Yaz had thrown that word at her. Yaz would be devastated when she knew the full story. 

“You could have told us, Doc,” he said, as gently as he could. 

“Not an easy thing to drop into a conversation,” she said. “‘Oh by the way, fam, sorry I’ve been in such a mood lately, it’s just that my entire race has been wiped off the face of the universe and I don’t know why’.” She laughed. A hysterical, humourless sound that set Graham’s teeth on edge. Her eyes shone with tears that wouldn’t fall. “Last of the Time Lords. _Again._ The Universe certainly has a sense of humour. Everything I went through to save them before. All for nothing.” 

He only understood about half of what the Doctor was saying. Maybe less than that. 

“I’m sorry,” he said. 

“Yeah. Me too.” 

A heavy silence fell between them. Graham had a thousand questions bouncing around his head that he knew he could never ask. It was hard to even fathom how the Doctor must be feeling. The sheer magnitude of it made him feel physically ill. Grief, he understood. He’d lost many people throughout his life, most recently Grace. The love of his life. To lose everybody in one fell swoop though... Well, he didn’t like it but he wasn’t surprised she’d kept it to herself. How did one even begin to process something like that?

“I’m sorry you had to see it,” she said quietly. “I know it must have been difficult.” 

It took him a moment to even register she’d spoken. “Not as sorry as I am that you’re living it. I hope you know that we’re all here for you if you need us?” 

Her responding tremulous smile was cut off by a yawn and she reached over for one of the oversized cushions and pulled it to her chest. In the other hand she still clutched at Graham’s fingers and seemed to be in no hurry to let him go. If he was being honest with himself he didn’t think he was quite ready to sever their connection either. 

He’d spent most of his life striving for deeper emotional connections with the people around him. He didn’t like the way it had happened, but it felt nice to be close to somebody again. 

An easy quiet fell over them. One that Graham felt no need to fill. The Doctor’s eyes fluttered closed and she leaned back into the sofa. It was the most relaxed he’d seen her for weeks, although that could have had something to do with the fact that she was still in Graham’s body, and nobody on this TARDIS appreciated comfort more than he did. He thought about encouraging her to go back to bed, because he knew sleeping on the sofa would wreak havoc on his back tomorrow if she stayed here. He found he didn’t quite have the heart to tell her to move. 

Instead, he closed his own eyes and allowed himself to drift off into a gentle doze. They could talk more in the morning. 

* * *

He woke to the sound of soft voices somewhere above him and a dull ache spreading from his spine up to his neck. 

“They look kind of cute, don’t you think?” It took him a second to register who was speaking. _Yaz._

“Uh...if you like.” That one was Ryan. 

“Oi! I am not _cute_!” And there was the Doctor. 

Though every inch of his body protested the move, he forced himself to open his eyes, blinking rapidly against the sudden light. He looked sideways to see the Doctor on her feet and stretching out her limbs. Based on the dints in the sofa, she’d been curled in a ball next to him. How did they get here again? 

“Doctor?” 

“Yes?” said the Doctor, rolling her shoulders. There were little indents on her cheek where her face had been pressed into the edge of a cushion. “Who else would I be?” 

Yaz and Ryan looked at each other and for a moment he was just as confused as the Doctor was. Then it clicked. 

“Doc! We’re back!” 

She blinked and then looked down at herself. “Oh. Right. Yes. I thought this might happen!” 

Graham suppressed a groan as he sat himself up properly. “Don’t listen to a word she says,” he said to Yaz and Ryan, who looked far too amused for his liking. “She told me last night we’d need to fix that bloody stupid machine before we’d swap back.” 

“Rubbish,” said the Doctor. 

“Yeah I’m leaning towards siding with Graham on this one,” said Yaz, a smile playing about her lips. 

“Same,” said Ryan. 

The Doctor turned to him, mouth open in surprise. “Et tu, Ryan?” 

“Sorry,” he said, with an unapologetic shrug. “I have to call it like it see it.” 

The Doctor harrumphed and then stuck her hand in her pockets. Pockets that Graham now knew were inexplicably bigger on the inside. “You’d better not have messed anything up in here, Graham O’Brien.” 

“I didn’t move your week old Custard Creams if that’s what you’re worried about,” he replied. He took in a deep breath then and forced himself to his feet. He swayed for a moment, lightheaded. “Or the tin of marbles. Or the completely dead Nokia 3310.” 

“It has my highest score on Snake!”

“What’s Snake?” asked Ryan, with that expression on his face that meant he was judging someone (usually Graham) for being old and uncool. 

“Awesome,” said the Doctor. 

“Let’s not get carried away,” said Graham. She looked like she might argue, but then closed her mouth and shrugged. 

“So any idea how you switched back?” asked Yaz. As she spoke, she glanced around the library. He supposed he wasn’t the only member of their group seeing this room for the first time. Had the Doctor kept it from them? Or had the TARDIS? It seemed unlikely that the three of them just happened to have missed it up until now. 

“It must have just worn off, I suppose,” said the Doctor, though she seemed faintly troubled by the idea.

Ryan narrowed his eyes at them and Graham yawned. “Did you two talk last night?” 

“About what?” asked the Doctor. Her nose wrinkled in confusion, and Graham was so glad it was her own nose and not his, because he never wanted to see his face scrunch like that again. 

“I dunno. Important things,” Ryan said. 

There was an awkward pause that lasted just a bit too long as Graham and the Doctor glanced at each other. Beneath the ever present sheen of manic joy, the Doctor’s expression was as guarded as ever. Not guarded enough to hide the flicker of fear he could see in her eyes though. He wondered if he’d have spotted it if he hadn’t been expecting it. 

“Not really,” he said. It wasn’t his place to share the Doctor’s secrets. 

Ryan’s face brightened. “Liar! Do you know what this means?” 

“What’s that?” said Graham, only half paying attention to his grandson. The other part of him edged back towards what the Doctor had revealed to him last night. Now, in the cold light of day, he had no idea what to do with that information. Did that make him selfish?

“You two totally Freaky Friday-ed!” 

“What?” said Graham, snapping out of his musings.

“We did no such thing!” said the Doctor. “It was just a temporal spatial consciousness displacement. Very common. The psychonetic waves keeping us outside of our own bodies must have been disrupted by the TARDIS.” 

  
Yaz laughed. “Yeah, Doctor. We might not be geniuses, but we know enough to know you just made all that up.” 

“You Freaky Friday-ed,” Ryan repeated. 

“We did not.” The Doctor huffed.

“One day the Universe will sing songs about the day that Ryan Sinclair was _right_.” Ryan raised a hand and pressed it to his heart. “I hope John Boyega plays me in the movie adaptation.” 

Graham forced himself to smile while the Doctor continued to look generally miffed about the whole thing. 

“All right dial it back a bit. Nobody likes a sore winner,” said Yaz. There was no way that was happening anytime soon. Graham had a feeling he’d be hearing about this for, at the very least, a few months. “Come on. Why don’t we go and get some breakfast? That’s why we came to find you.” The last part she said to Graham. 

“I’ll catch up with you in a sec,” he said. “Just want a quick word with the Doc. Want to make sure there’s no lingering side-effects.” 

Yaz nodded, and he didn’t miss the look of concern that flashed across her face. She was a good kid, that one. Heart in the right place. She nudged Ryan’s shoulder, and with one final look back the two left the library. As soon as they were out of sight the Doctor seemed to tense, eyes glued firmly to the ground and arms wrapped around her stomach. It was like a switch had been flipped.

“You all right, Doc?” he asked, for lack of anything else to say. 

It took her a moment to respond. Maybe she was debating whether or not to lie. He hoped she wasn’t. 

“I’ve had better days,” she said eventually. “How are you feeling?” 

“Not bad, all things considered,” he said. “All my...parts are back where they normally are at least. My neck’s going to be sore for a while though.” 

“Sorry about that,” she said, with a guilty frown. “I didn’t mean to fall asleep in here.” 

“I believe you,” said Graham. He was now confident that falling asleep was the absolute bottom of her agenda. “Listen, Doc-” 

“You don’t have to say anything,” she said. He was almost grateful for the interruption because he had no idea where he had been going with that sentence. “I know it’s...a lot to take in. Like...a _lot_ a lot. Don’t even know what to say myself really.” 

She looked so small in that moment. 

“Maybe we don’t need to say anything then,” said Graham. She looked up and raised an eyebrow. Had she been expecting an argument? “If you don’t want to talk about it right now, you don’t have to. As long as you know I’m here for you whenever you do. I’m sure Ryan and Yaz would be too if you wanted them to be.” 

She smiled awkwardly, though her eyes remained sad and tired. There was no way she’d ever willingly share this information with Ryan and Yaz, he realised. Would never have even shared it with him if she could have avoided it. How long, he wondered, would she have kept going without telling any of them that she was suffering. 

Too long, he concluded. 

The intense focus with which they had been jumping from adventure to adventure recently suddenly made more sense. He’d never pegged the Doctor as a woman who ran from her problems. Maybe he should have. He could hardly judge. The first thing he’d done after Grace’s death was hop into the TARDIS to see the universe. It hadn’t felt like running at the time. Maybe it wasn’t, and maybe he was being too hard on her. People needed to grieve in their own way.

“So,” he said, if only to distract himself from his own rather circular thought process. “What’s the plan for today now we aren’t trekking across the galaxy to find bits of machine?” 

And just like that the light was back and something coiled and tense in his chest eased. If he didn’t know better he thought he might envy her resilience. She gestured wildly over her head. “I thought that maybe we could visit the last moon of-” 

She stopped abruptly and her face fell. “Graham.” 

“Yeah?” 

“Did you not go to the bathroom at all yesterday?” 

He flinched. _Oh_. “Er...I didn’t want to invade your privacy?” 

The Doctor stared at him aghast. _"Graham_!” 

“Sorry, Doc.” 

“You are so lucky you’re in my good books right now!” 

She turned around and stalked from the room, her coat flaring dramatically behind her, all the while muttering to herself. He couldn’t hear much but he was fairly certain he caught the word ‘idiot’. 

“I’ll see you at breakfast then?” he called after her. There was an unsurprising lack of response. “Right,” he then said to himself. 

Business as usual then. 

**Author's Note:**

> So this started out as crackfic and ended up not being even remotely how I had planned. Such is life, I suppose. Thank you for reading!


End file.
